Schrödinger’s Elon Musk

“It’s another beautiful day in the simulation!”

I love saying that, and I probably use it far too often. Oh, and I stole it from my wife, Sally. Credit where credit is due and all that.

Are we living in a simulation? In various interviews, Elon Musk has famously stated that there is a one-in-a-billion chance that we are not living in a simulation. Turning that around, he is saying that we are almost certainly living in a made up universe. A hyper-realistic fantasy. He cites, among other things, the rapid increases in video game development, to show that given enough time, it should be possible to create a perfect simulation. And, if such a perfect simulation has been created, then it must be created time and time again.

Some people make light of this argument, and suggest that the idea that we are living in a simulation is, to put it kindly, ridiculous. After all the world, with its highs and lows, fits and foibles, successes and failures, would seem to imply that the game designers of our universe have thrown in an awful lot of mundane and ridiculous things to challenge the hapless members of this simulation. Who would do something like this. Besides, the world certainly feels real.

Incidentally, Elon isn’t the first person to present a carefully thought out “simulation argument”. That honor probably should go to Nick…